Random Thought Thread

bluemax_1 said:
Technological advancements are pretty amazing.

I recall when the Cray XMP was THE fastest supercomputer in the world (just looked it up. Held that title for 2 years from 1983 - 1985, when the newer Cray-2 took the title). A whopping 800 Megaflops (800 million Floating Point Operations Per Second), and 11,300lbs.

The top current smartphones (eg. iPhone and Galaxy) have performance measured in Teraflops (1 Teraflop = 1 TRILLION flops, or 1 million X million floating point operations per second) 😲

Interesting article comparing the Cray-2 (which ONLY weighed 5,500 lbs vs the XMP's 11,300 lbs) to an iPhone 12.
https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2...ring-1980s-supercomputer-to-modern-smartphone

*** In a nutshell, building a Cray-2, which pushed the new record to 1.9 billion flops, to match the performance of an iPhone 12, would take 80,000 square feet of space and weigh almost 14,000 tons.
Click to expand...

I used the Cray YMP many years ago. Was the first one using C++ on it; I know because I ported the C++ 1.0 compiler to it :) Met Cray in person once, when he was giving a lecture in Zurich. Also once sat for two weeks in a basement in Boston using a Connection Machine 2. Then RISC processors came out ... and the big machines were history. Not to brag or anything, just fondly remember - these were fun times. There is a time and place for everything .... and it's called college :)
 
Le_Voyage_dans_la_lune.jpg

"Get off my lawn!"
 
BTW, random thoughts update;

Last winter, I mentioned testing coating the snowblower and snow shovel with one of the so-called nano ceramic auto coatings (Mothers CMX) to see how it did with preventing snow from sticking.

Happy to say it still appears to be working very well. I applied two coats last year, and snow still doesn't stick. I used to use either a silicone or Teflon spray before each use, to prevent snow buildup/sticking. Haven't had to use it (and I haven't reapplied the ceramic coating since the original application last winter).

Anyone who's shoveled a decent amount of snow, knows that after a while, snow begins sticking to the shovel, requiring you to bang the shovel to dislodge it (and the snow continues sticking more and more, to the point where banging the shovel won't dislodge all of it).

Likewise, snow sticking and building up can clog a snowblower to the point you need to stop and use a stick or other implement to clear the clog.

Project Farm did a test on youtube of several brands, and it looks like the Turtle Wax 53409 Hybrid might be even more durable.

The idea to coat the snow shovel and snowblower popped up, because I noticed that 3 coats of the CMX the first time I applied it, continued to bead water on the Toyota for ~2.5 years (I deliberately did not reapply after the initial triple coat, to see how long it lasted).
 
bluemax_1 said:
Last winter, I mentioned testing coating the snowblower and snow shovel with one of the so-called nano ceramic auto coatings (Mothers CMX) to see how it did with preventing snow from sticking.
Click to expand...
I always forget to try this out, but I'm hoping snow is all done in New England for this season.

Unrelated, I need to start tapping my trees soon for some sweet, sweet tree blood.
 
I’LL SHOW YOU MINE IF YOU SHOW ME YOURS……,,,,

I’m CONSIDERING offering up 1(one) of my meager collection of 8 CPKs to the new BS&T. It’ll probably look like a WTS offer w/ a strong hint of wanting to trade for more CPK.

Question is, should it be(hemoth) big and beautiful or should it cut like a double-edged sword fighter? I’d dagger not sell any but UF1 has got to go. If you don’t want to play this game w/ me, then FK2 !!! 😇
 
EMCEE said:
I’LL SHOW YOU MINE IF YOU SHOW ME YOURS……,,,,

I’m CONSIDERING offering up 1(one) of my meager collection of 8 CPKs to the new BS&T. It’ll probably look like a WTS offer w/ a strong hint of wanting to trade for more CPK.

Question is, should it be(hemoth) big and beautiful or should it cut like a double-edged sword fighter? I’d dagger not sell any but UF1 has got to go. If you don’t want to play this game w/ me, then FK2 !!! 😇
Click to expand...
Be(hemoth) your best self
 
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